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When Australian oil company Santos launched a low-emission oil field in Alaska using carbon capture technology, it was a rare international environmental victory. In an era defined by a global rediscovery of industrial policy, increasing tariffs, and an obsession with supply chain security and “made in America,” Santos stands out. That’s because there is one green initiative so important, though seldom discussed, from the Biden administration’s green agenda: carbon capture. This project by a friendly, albeit foreign, company dampens protectionist headwinds.
Southeast Asia’s renewable energy potential is some of the greatest in the world. In bold pursuit of renewable energy, Vietnam is undertaking an unorthodox but promising green hydrogen strategy, Thailand’s Prime Minister has promised to explore the cutting edge of nuclear power, and the Philippines has received broad praise for its commitment to renewables and regional trend-setting.
President Biden wanted to make half of all new vehicles electric by 2030, but American consumers apparently are saying no. American market trends are skewing differently than expected. Despite the U.S. government’s efforts to subsidize electric vehicles, there is an apparent slowdown in sales. While global EV sales are steadily increasing, U.S. sales are falling behind those of Europe and China.
The Supreme Court has overturned Chevron deference, a precedent set in 1984 when the Court ruled in Chevron U.S.A. Inc. vs. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc that if a statute was ambiguous and Congress had not explicitly addressed an issue, then courts must defer to the agency’s approach to addressing it as long as the agency provides “a permissible construction of the statute.” The new precedent-setting ruling voids this decision, diminishing federal agencies’ powers, influencing pending and established environmental regulations, and creating a powerful new argument for regulatory disputes, including in energy-related industries and areas. Ultimately, this ruling will send energy companies and their opponents to court, where their attorneys and representatives of the federal and state governments, and environmentalist NGOs will bear the weight of litigation.
A drought has forced Canada, which traditionally relies on hydroelectric energy for 60% of its total electricity, to reverse its energy trading relationship with the United States. Not only has Canada cut the amount of energy it sends to the US, but U.S. energy exports to Canada have outpaced its imports. In March, the amount of energy the US sent to Canada reached its highest level since 2010, marking a major change in the relationship between the two countries. America has historically depended on Canadian energy, with Canada exporting more energy to the US than any other country, including Saudi Arabia in its heyday. Now, the US may be unable to rely on cheap energy from the friendly next-door neighbor.
The first presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on Thursday, June 27th, may be shocking for the lack of civility, terrible optics and demeanor, but policy differences were present and obvious. Energy policy didn’t feature prominently, but there was plenty to glean from the debate. Environmental regulations, geoeconomic foreign policy, and the energy transition have become political landmines.
In April 2024, Vietnam and the United States embarked upon one of the world’s most ambitious green hydrogen collaborative strategies. The United States Agency for International Development and Standard Chartered Bank Vietnam signed a Memorandum of Understanding to support Vietnam’s transition towards a hydrogen-centric renewable energy model. Building upon President Joe Biden’s visit to Hanoi in September 2023, this MOU aims to facilitate private-sector investment and help Vietnam achieve its net-zero emission goals by 2050. In doing so, Hanoi and Washington aspire to bolster Vietnamese-American relations which are so vital for both parties’ geopolitical concerns vis-a-vis Vietnam’s domineering neighbor: China.
In Q1 2024, 11 gigawatts of solar module manufacturing capacity were activated in the United States. This represents a 71% increase, making it the largest quarterly capacity increase in American history. That is enough electricity to power 8.2 million homes.
Amidst such good news, it is easy to ignore the looming problems associated with American solar energy. It risks becoming a victim of its own uneven success. The increase in productive capacity is not being matched by advances in batteries, grid modernization, distribution, decentralization, storage, or baseload. If U.S. solar energy production continues its climb upward, buoyed by the Inflation Reduction Act without innovation in these interconnected sectors, the industry risks creating a solar energy bubble in which electricity generation and panel production and installation cannot be effectively utilized. It will take years of innovation in battery and solar technology to contend with these limitations and seamlessly integrate solar into the country’s energy portfolio.
The global competition between the West and the rest takes many forms, including in the energy area. The nuclear energy industry has long been such a battlefield. Unfortunately, the U.S. and Europe are not doing great when it comes to winning bids in the developing world.
In late May 2024, Uzbekistan signed an agreement with Russia for the sanctioned Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom) to build a nuclear power plant in Uzbekistan. It will be the first nuclear power plant in Central Asia, providing emission-free electricity to an energy-hungry nation. It will also give Moscow renewed leverage in a region that used the war in Ukraine as an opportunity to slip out of Moscow’s orbit. This Russian success is not fully consolidated; neighboring Kazakhstan has rebuffed Russian advances, at least for now. Astana is considering four options: from China, Russia, South Korea and France, and the issue will be voted upon in the national referendum to be held this Autumn
The dramatic resignation of Ilya Sutskever, the chief scientist of OpenAI, which is behind artificial intelligence and large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, has reinvigorated public debates on the future of AI and its exorbitant costs. Beyond the many acknowledged concerns, such as AI safety or the future of work and creativity, there is a trade-off that will be no less transformative. AI is one of the most energy-intensive modern IT undertakings. The world, concerned with carbon emission, may not be ready.
The isolation of the Texas power grid has become a symbol of the state’s independent streak and resistance to federal oversight in recent years. The massive outages during Winter Storm Uri in 2021 were a wake-up call to the vulnerabilities of Texas’ system. However, crises in Summer 2022 and Winter 2023 were still severe. Now it seems Texas now confronts another avoidable crisis, with record high temperatures approaching and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas warning that these conditions may squeeze reserve margins.
Achieving a green future is a worthy and necessary aspirational goal. However, realizing aspirations requires sound strategy and a willingness to learn and reformulate policies and plans in the future.
The world's largest electric container ship, constructed by China’s COSCO Shipping Corporation, completed its first-ever voyage on April 22. This ship alone will save thousands of tons of carbon emissions in just a few trips, a feat that the climate-conscious worldwide should applaud. Carbon emissions from international shipping, vital for global trade, are upward-trending, contributing to global climate change, and must be addressed if we want a green future. However, a breakthrough may quickly transform into Washington's worst nightmare should the US find itself unable to compete and continue to fall behind in its shipbuilding capacity.
Tesla was once the undisputed global leader in electric vehicles. In the earlier part of this decade, Tesla’s Tesla0.0% stock was a certain winner, reaching an all-time high on November 4, 2021. Those days are now distant as the company grapples with mounting competition from international and Chinese rivals, with companies such as BYD dominating the market and the phone maker Xiaomi entering the fray. Chinese-owned Polestar, Volvo, as well as Hyundai, Volkswagen, and others, are presenting tangible challenges to Tesla’s position globally. It is unclear whether Elon Musk’s efforts to reverse this trend appear to be successful.
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Harm reduction is a helpful policy concept from the narcotics field that can be applied to energy and climate change. It recognizes that drug abuse occurs and seeks to minimize the negative consequences that drug use can bring, ideally improving (or saving) both the life of the user and of society. For example, making naloxone available to first responders helps save lives that would otherwise be lost to drug overdoses, saving families from the loss of a loved one and communities from otherwise being ravaged by multiple drug-related deaths. Across our lives, in medicine and government, sliding scales of harm are acknowledged and inform policy.
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The Sino-American trade war may be old news, but now a new battlefield is front and center: green tech. During her controversial visit to China, Secretary Janet Yellen made waves by criticizing China’s excess industrial capacity. Secretary Yellen warned the Chinese that retaliatory tariffs would be levied if this wasn’t addressed while simultaneously making the case to the rest of the world that Chinese production threatened nascent industries worldwide. These quarrels have been a hallmark of Sino-American relations for decades. What is novel is that the focus of these complaints isn’t cheap consumer goods but the cutting-edge technologies of the 21st century.
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The long-simmering conflict between Iran and Israel erupted this weekend when Tehran launched a massive air strike against the Jewish state. Over 300 drones, cruise, and ballistic missiles were aimed at Israeli airspace on Saturday night, April 13, and early hours of Sunday the 14th. This attack was not a surprise. President Biden warned days before the attack it would likely occur, and Iran itself stated as much after Israel allegedly bombed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command building in Damascus, killing senior IRGC generals. Iran ignored and violated the diplomatic immunity of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and conducted a terror attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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With over half a dozen Liquefied Natural Gas GAS-0.7%export projects underway in Mexico, stakeholders are watching anxiously to see if US politics will force them to stop. In January, President Joe Biden issued an executive order pausing the approval of new LNG export permits for countries that do not have a Free Trade Agreement with the US. This decision sparked outrage among industry stakeholders and politicians, who viewed it as a political ploy to appease environmentalists and gain their support in the 2024 Presidential election.
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Three recent wars highlighted the use of drones in 21st-century warfare. Houthi and Iranian attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure and military in Yemen brought the war between Iranian proxies and the UAE-Saudi coalition to a stalemate by 2015. Azerbaijan used drones massively against Armenia in 2020 and 2023, and a deluge of drone-focused combat footage flooded the internet after Russia’s February 2022 re-invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian songs cheering on the Turkish Baykar company’s Bayraktar drone went viral as drones devastated Russian armor. The Kremlin is playing catch-up quite successfully. The Russian military used swarms of drones, many of them Iranian-made, in attacks against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure targets.
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The US House of Representatives appears to be so dysfunctional that Mike Turner, the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, had to go public to respond to a major national security threat from new Russian anti-satellite weaponry. Meanwhile, the other Mike, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, is delaying a vote on crucial foreign aid to provide means for Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine to defend themselves.
Energy, specifically the Biden Administration’s liquified natural gas (LNG) future infrastructure development pause/ban, is also on the Congressional agenda. The recent White House decision is one of the worst in a string of failed energy decisions, including the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada’s oil sands to the Gulf of Mexico.
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Congressional hearings scheduled for February 6 and 8 expose the Biden administration’s massive energy policy blunder. This misstep will impede American energy production, undermine economic growth, endanger the hard-earned U.S. status as the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter, and threaten Washington’s strategic credibility among friends and foes. The hearings are set to unite a strange assortment of political bedfellows, including liberal democrats determined to support Ukraine and conservative Republicans determined to expand LNG exports. In late January, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced a series of new measures aimed at the U.S. LNG sector. Projects already completed or near completion, including several large export terminals in Texas and Louisiana, will be put on hold indefinitely.
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The Houthis, an Iranian-backed proxy terrorist group in Yemen, trained and equipped by the theocratic dictatorship in Tehran, have unleashed chaos on the global supply chain and sent shockwaves through international markets. Now that the US is attacking Iranian targets proxies in Syria and Iraq while the UK and US are bombing Houthis in the Red Sea targets. The cost to the global economy is ticking upwards.
Nearly 30 percent of global container shipping navigates through the Suez Canal via the Red Sea, with 15 percent of global trade passing through the Red Sea, mostly destined for Asia. This traffic includes not only strategic resources like oil and gas but also everyday goods and commodities that keep the global economic engine humming.
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A US bombing campaign against Iranian proxies, which hit more than 85 targets in response to a recent drone attack in Jordan that killed three Americans and injured dozens, threatens a regional conflagration. This crisis began after the Houthi attacks out of Yemen on commercial shipping in the Red Sea disrupted the supply chain, raised maritime insurance and transport costs, and threatened a global recession.
Amidst the deluge of international condemnation, one actor’s silence speaks volumes: China’s. Outwardly, China and President Xi Jinping are putting on an excellent poker face. However, this cannot hide China’s unenviable dilemma: its ambitions for global leadership require expanding influence in the Middle East, while simultaneously China’s economy and the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party are threatened by Iran’s truculence.
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Even as Russia remains under unprecedented Western economic sanctions, the U.S. finds itself dependent on one Russian vital import: enriched uranium. The U.S. is the largest producer of nuclear energy in the world, but it has allowed its civilian nuclear infrastructure to languish since Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan’s presidencies in the 1970s and 1980s.
While the U.S. has coasted on its laurels, with nuclear energy production not changing much in over 30 years, Russia continues its gradual climb upward and exports many reactors, while China is investing heavily in civilian nuclear tech and boosting its atomic power generation at home. Beijing plans to build 24 new nuclear power plants by 2030, bringing the total up to 60, overtaking the U.S. with its old reactor fleet. For comparison, the U.S. has 93 operational nuclear power plants in total, and in the same period as China’s building spree, the U.S. added 2 with none under development now.
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The world is running short of copper, and companies and countries are scrambling. This essential metal, a staple of civilization going back to the bronze age, is the lifeblood of existing energy infrastructure and cutting-edge technology. Unfortunately, it faces a projected supply shortfall by 2025 with projections showing a 20% price jump by May 2027. Annual demand will surge to 36.6 million metric tons by 2031, up from 25.3 million in 2021.
This vulnerability isn’t merely an economic inconvenience; it’s a geopolitical powder keg. The U.S. finds itself in an increasingly high-stakes scramble for global copper supplies against China. If this competition isn’t managed the same way the competition for crude oil is, competition for copper could further destabilize the already rocky international system.
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